Track lighting is well known in the art, as exemplified by the Inventor's U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,822,292, 4,812,834, D318,742, D318,143, and others. Track lighting is widely used because of its extreme versatility and its ability to accommodate changes, wherein a lighting fixture may be positioned at any point along the track and may be aimed in any direction from its attachment point. However, track lighting has has several significant disadvantages. The first such disadvantage is that the track fixtures generate substantial amounts of heat in the room, as well as radiant infrared heat in the light beams. The second significant disadvantage of track lighting is that, although the track itself is very compact, usually no more than a one-inch-high by two-inch-wide cross-section, all the fixtures hang downward from tracks on the ceiling 6 to 10 inches, providing an unattractive, cluttered ceiling appearance.
The clutter of the depending track liught fixtures may be eliminated by the use of small strip lights, in which a miniature track supports many tiny light bulbs aling its length. This approach is exemplified by systems such as shown in the applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,743. These systems are very limited in wattage, as the lamp heat is not readily dissipated; so they are incapable for use as general illumination.
Fiber optic lighting is also a known art, as exemplified by the applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,399. Such fiber optic systems overcome the track lighting disadvantage of excess heat in the room by placing the light source outside the room. The other track lighting disadvantage, having many unattractive depending light fixtures on the ceiling, is partially overcome by the unusually small size of fiber optic luminaires, such as those shown in the applicant's pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/746,749.
It is known to mount fiber optic luminaires in fixed locations inlight bars, as shown in the Churchill U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,535. However, such presently-known fiber optic mounting channels must be very deep in order to accommodate the bend radius of the fiber optic light guides, as shown. Further, in order to provide optical control, the luminaires depend from the light bar, as seen in the Churchill patent.
The primary purpose of the present invention is to provide a fiber optic track lighting system that retains all of the light guides and the fiber optic luminaires hidden within a small channel that is no larger than conventional lighting track, without any external fixtures. It is a further purpose of the invention to provide a fiber optic track lighting system in which each fiber optic luminaire may be aimed, both longitudinally and transversely with repect to the track.